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The Academy of American Poets is the largest membership-based nonprofit organization fostering an appreciation for contemporary poetry and supporting American poets. For over three generations, the Academy has connected millions of people to great poetry through programs such as National Poetry Month, the largest literary celebration in the world; Poets.org, the Academy’s popular website; American Poets, a biannual literary journal; and an annual series of poetry readings and special events. Since its founding, the Academy has awarded more money to poets than any other organization.

occasions

“‘Emma Bovary’ took its time. It started years ago as a monologue in the voice of the Cumaean Sibyl from Virgil’s Aeneid, twice as long and very boring. More recently I have been obsessed with Lydia Davis’s translation of Madame Bovary, and coming across the unfinished poem while thinking about Emma finally made the lines snap into place: The leaf-cutter ants of Costa Rica make an appearance too.”—Monica Ferrell

Emma Bovary

I would have liked then for someone to touch meSo I could know the purpose of this hardship.Black-eyed and impassive as a canyon,From the hive of my mind, I looked at their faces As I moved between rows of espaliered pears.I only intended for someone to showMe, once, an affection like the sunShows even the simplest bulb, entering what’s hidden.Let me show them instead the pictureIn a knife’s reflection, take down my hairWhere the gravedigger kneels among new potatoes.Behind my teeth are headstones, and behind thoseSkeletons of cavemen, of dinosaurs,And under my skin: alphabets, alphabetsIn black ink, a legacy of histories tiny and aliveAs an ant army marching toward forever.Understand, please—I, too, have a splendid use,This world could not get rid of me if it wanted to.

by this poet

You need me like ice needs the mountain
On which it breeds. Like print needs the page.
You move in me like the tongue in a mouth,
Like wind in the leaves of summer trees,
Gust-fists, hollow except for movement and desire
Which is movement. You taste me the way the claws
Of a pigeon taste that window-ledge on

Man shaped out of mud
And made to speak and love—
Let's stick in him a little whisperer,
A bucket with two holes.
Let's give him the Great Deceiver,
A blood-stone.
A church with a vaulted ceiling
Where the White and Blue Niles meet.
A dog who cries after dark.
Everyone has a heart,
Even the people who don't.

There is nothing beautiful hereHowever I may want it. I can’tSpin a crystal palace of this thin air,Weave a darkness plush as molefur with my tongueHowever I want. Yet I am not aloneIn these alleys of vowels, which comfort meAs the single living nun of a conventIs comforted

related poems

I skim sadness like fat off the surfaceof cooling soup. Don't care aboutmetaphor but wish it would arriveme. There’s a cool current of airthis hot day I want to ride.I have no lover, not even my love.I have no other, not even I.

self-portrait with cats, with purple, with stacks
of half-read books adorning my desk, with coffee,
with mug, with yesterday's mug. self-portrait
with guilt, with fear, with thick-banded silver ring,
painted toes, and no make-up on my face. self

Because her body is winter inside a cavebecause someone builtfire there and forgot to put it outbecause bedtime is a castleshe’s building inside herselfwith a moatand portcullisand buckets full of mistbecause when you let gothe reins